


Flickers

by Missy



Category: 12 Dancing Princesses (Fairy Tale)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1930s, Alternate Universe - Hollywood, Enemies to Friends, Fairy Tale Retellings, Gen, Old Hollywood - Freeform, Yuletide Madness, Yuletide Treat, mafia, teaming up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-08-19 15:47:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16537529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: There were once twelve little starlets...An Old Hollywood retelling of 12 Dancing Princesses.





	Flickers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sprl1199](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sprl1199/gifts).



Once there were twelve princesses of Hollywood. They were, according to the tabloids, each more beautiful than the next, thought that’s something their agents would quibble over in the trades. Their days are swallowed whole by deportment lessons, posture and elocution. They were seen in the right places with the right co-stars. At night they went to the Coconut Grove and the Mocambo, and danced the night away. Their agents acted like nervous daddy figures while slipping them thickly-iced drinks and encouraging them to have more.

 

They act…occasionally. In forgettable B-string movies, but wasn’t that how every princess starts her career?

They didn’t figure out that they’d been dancing with the sorts of power brokers who could break them all night until the tabloid stories appeared. They had memories of the dancing, but not of appearing with mobsters who had heavy influence with the various studio heads who could make or break their careers. Could it be a brokered deal with a studio head? Could it be something much more sinister?

 

Could they be dancing the night away and coming home with worn out stockings and shoes and weary heads, only to learn that their images were being molded into something ugly while they slept?

 

*** 

 

Conchetta – the youngest, called Connie in the slicks, with her electrolysized hairline and her Venezuelan accent painstakingly erased by a vocal coach – was the one who called the other eleven together. They met at a motel off the highway in a quiet suburban town, and sat on the floor, the edge of the bed, and chairs hastily pulled toward its center.

 

Conchetta was sure that it was their agents, the rat finks – trying to sell them to the highest bidder for extra attention. It was part of a dangerous game that none of them wanted to be part of. Who was to say a stray bullet might end their hopes before they began? Terry was the one who pointed out that they could easily disprove these stories, these slurs against their character, by sitting together all night. Solidarity in numbers. For Lou – to whom dancing was freedom – the idea was appalling. Mary was frightened. Sue was incredulous. Betty wished she’d stopped for lunch – if only so she could have a drink to throw on her agent. Ellen was thinking about what she could get out of this for herself, and Laura was scared they’d rat her out. Theresa had plans to go back home and take the plow back up; Hilda wanted to throw up. Hannah thought that they were going to be caught, and Polly sat back, laughing.

 

But they had one goal; a war through attrition. A sisterhood through might.

 

Their agents were less than pleased with them. In fact, they were incredibly angry. Mary had an uncle who was a private dick, and he searched out the mystery behind the strange pictures. Soon, they had evidence of the ties. Dressed to the nines for a big ensemble dance number, they weren’t about to give everything up just when it was getting so good. Lou brought a gun. Polly, however, called the police with her blow-ups of the obviously faked inserts. And since her uncle was a studio head…

 

All twelve girls walked away with studio contracts. 

And the dancing, at last, was done.


End file.
